


Howl

by jar



Category: Dog Soldiers (2002)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-30
Updated: 2010-10-30
Packaged: 2017-10-12 23:23:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jar/pseuds/jar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fic serves barely any purpose beyond me writing about Kevin McKidd's character in pain: violence, blood. AU for the ending of the film. Private Cooper has no first name according to IMDB, so I've invented him one.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Howl

**Author's Note:**

> This fic serves barely any purpose beyond me writing about Kevin McKidd's character in pain: violence, blood. AU for the ending of the film. Private Cooper has no first name according to IMDB, so I've invented him one.

This is how Private James Cooper learns that letting go is the hardest thing you can do.

"Sarge," Coop nods but doesn't salute, just holds his hand limp and conspicuous at his side, feeling like it's swollen three times its size and painted neon green for how obvious it is.

The Sarge rolls over on his cot. It's not a standard issue piece of shite from the barracks, not some cold looking camping deal, it's a nice looking thing Coop would almost describe as a bed. By army standards, it's a fucking cloud from heaven. They'd said _he'll only tear them up_ and Coop had argued Harry deserved some fucking comfort since he was getting torn up too, every single full moon.

Harry is up and in front of him within a blink, Coop startles as Harry raps his knuckles where his hand is folded around the bars.

"Afternoon," Harry grins.

They don't keep him here all the time, only the day before the full moon. Thankfully, because Coop knows he would have argued it to the point of insubordination, he'd have ended up out on his arse and the Sarge would be exactly where they wanted him anyway. Part of the reason he'd taken the job was to try and keep Harry from being mistreated, he's no good to Harry if he's not here. They've got to stick together.

 _"More observation of the lycanthrope during and after transformation," Coop is told._

 _"Is there some reason you cannea observe him after a shot of morphine?" Coop asks._

 _Coop is told nothing, unless Doctor Suryamin's bark of laughter counts. He understands the dismissal, if not the rationale behind watching his Sergeant suffer._

"How goes it, boss?" Harry says.

"Ah, Sarge, that's a bit much."

Harry smiles, and it crinkles the corners of his eyes. Coop feels a wave of relief every time he comes back, every day he comes in, and Harry's still smiling. "Ah, but you're my 'handler'." He air-quotes around it.

"So they tell me," Coop says and hopes his meaning is taken. He takes their orders quietly because he has to, but his only real loyalty left in the world is to the man (and he _is_ still a man) in front of him.

"I suppose that means you outrank me, now?" Harry raps Coop's knuckles again and moves back to sit down on the bed, his knee jumping up and down quick, quick, quick.

"Well, they didnae promote me."

"The subordinate to a subordinate. I love the service. Might as well give it up and say owner." Harry tugs at the leather and metal around his throat, and Coop realises he's let his eyes slip. He tries not to stare at the collar around Harry's neck, the latest in a long line of attempts at keeping a collar on the wolf. This one's got overlapping metal plates, like the armoured back of a beetle.

"No, uh," Coop clears his throat, "more as if we own each other," he feels his blush scrawled across his cheeks and chest. Thought _then_ speech, next time.

The Sarge just laughs and gets up again, paces the cell, six by eight and over again.

"I didnae mean--" Coop starts and stops abruptly, the silence as abrupt as taking a finger off the trigger of an SA80.

See, loyalty means a lot to Coop. They'd crawled through all sort of shit together before they'd ever known there was such a thing as fucking werewolves, and for that alone Coop would have had his Sarge's back for the rest of their lives.

 _He'd crawled out of the cellar and taken in the carnage. Parts of dead wolves had turned back to parts of dead people, ripped to shreds strewn over the room like wet confetti. Harry. He'd leaned down and plucked the dangling fingers from Harry's mouth and felt warm breath across the back of his hand, choked out a soft sound. Harry'd looked up at him, Coop's hand still dangling far too many fingers in front of his face, and said "Coop, you cunt." He'd grabbed Coop's overpopulated hand with a squish, pulled him down into a sticky hug, sprawled across each other. Well. That was something else. They'd run a stumbling, blood caked three legged race, arms around shoulders, along the forest road until they hit the patrol._

"What's the time?" Harry squints up at the high window, a little square of pale grey sky cut into thirds.

"You don' even have a fucking clock? I'll see to that, Sarge."

"That'd be much appreciated."

Coop eyes the chairs bolted against the wall, the closest a good few feet from the cage. He makes note to drag a chair in with him next time, and slides his back down the wall, rests his temple against the bars.

The Sarge stops pacing abruptly, slumps on the floor leans his back against the bed, hands rubbing at this stomach like it aches, right where the wolf had ripped him open.

"CanIsee'em?"

"Y'what?" Harry asks, scratching at his stomach like a dog with a particularly good itch.

Alright, so he'd hardly made himself _yessir, Drill Sargent_ -clear. Perfect army enunciation started with volume, and he hadn't even had managed that. Poor fucking show.

"Can I see 'em, Sarge?"

"I can hear you, Coop... can you see what?"

He's not sure if the Sarge is messing with him or if he's genuinely wondering what Coop means. If Coop has left the range of normal requests between friends with that. At this point, at the point where _werewolves_ , Coop can't judge anymore and has trouble thinking why he shouldn't ask.

"Your scars," he says, somewhat below regulation volume.

It's not the first time he's asked, either.

 _They'd stumbled like newborn conjoined twins, bloody and confused, until they'd run into more bastard Special Ops. The black suits had been watching, waiting, and they knew all the dirty details. They'd pistol whipped Coop into unconsciousness to separate him from Harry (they'd had to)._

 _There were no medals, no rewards, no time off offered, no promotions, no punishment or penalty. Only an offer, for Coop: join the newly-formed Dog Squad or be sent to the highest, coldest, most hateful sheep-infested crag in all of Scotland and left to freeze._

 _Not that he hated sheep, but there was really only one answer he could give: Harry had held out his hand, tugging up against unnecessary restraints they'd set him in. Coop'd grabbed Harry's hand, and it would have taken butt of another rifle to his head to make him let go again._

 _They'd ridden the four hours back to civilisation, then the next four to military ground. Coop'd put a hand flat on Harry's stomach, and Harry'd cracked his eyelids for the first time in three hours and mumbled, "Wha' the fuck, Private?" ._

 _"I just need to see."_

 _And Harry was alright._

Now he wants to see every time, like a ritual, like Spoon's stinking lucky socks, like knocking on wood. Harry's alright, he survived having his guts outside his body, look Ma no scars, _he'll be alright._

Coop feels his hair brush fabric before he realises Harry's moved, he startles, attempts to turn the jump into a deliberate motion.

 _Smooth_ , Cooper. Harry chuckles.

"You move fuckin' fast, nowadays," Coop says, and can't help grin back at Harry.

"I don't know," Harry says, and tugs his shirt untucked, "why you think it's goin' to look any different this time than the last, but it doesn't." Coop sits up and turns to face the bars, facing the red flushed skin of Harry's chest between his opened shirt, glances at the glint of dogtags under the fluorescent lights.

"I, uh," Coop says, then clears his throat and thinks like he's explaining something to a superior he knows is going to get him in trouble, just do it, Coop, you twat, "I just have to know." A slow clap rolls inside his head.

There are no scars now, none at all. He'd think he was imagining them, had he not held Harry's guts in his hands and a tube of glue in the other. He literally stuck Harry back together. You don't forget that.

"Don't fuck about, Coop, there's no time," Harry growls and Coop looks up in time to crack his cheekbone on the bars as Harry grabs his hand and tugs it through the bars, pressing it to his skin.

"Fuck," Coop says and decides there's no reason to specify if it's the ache in his cheek or the ache in his chest he's swearing about. Harry's grip slackens as abruptly as he'd grasped him, and Coop if left pressing his palm to the smooth, soft skin of Harry's stomach. A twitch of his fingers he hadn't deliberately made, and he can feel the steely muscle under the skin, and wonders briefly if it's Harry in there, down in his unscarred guts, or if it's all wolf.

"I feel fitter than I've ever felt. You know it," Harry's turns his head and Coop isn't sure if he imagines the devilish shine you catch from animals eyes in the dark. He glances at the high window, but the sky is still gray and secretive. "You've seen me beat every bare-arsed recruit they send us, every little prick still mourning his hair and in love with his guns."

"Aye, I've definitely seen that," Coop smiles to think of all the kids that come through here, take a look at Harry and dismiss him as the old guard, a fatherly, soft-centred figure. Especially funny when Coop says, _hullo, bet you can't take the ol' Sarge down in hand-to-hand?_ And every single cocky fucker eats the dirt. Not that the Sarge couldn't make most cocky fuckers eat dirt before he got turned, but it's like watching a baby carriage versus a train now.

"Stop worrying, you big girl's blouse. I'm fighting fucking fit, excepting being turned inside out once a month and becoming a bloodthirsty beast. And honestly, Coop… that's just helped me understand my ex-wife better, y'know."

Coop laughs and his hand falls from Harry's skin, his arm hanging over the horizontal bar between Harry and himself. Harry's smiling and it wrinkles the corners of his eyes. Coop watches as his eyes change, slow at first, irises lightening with gold. It's like sunset.

"Whatever you say, Sarge," Coop says, no longer laughing. He eases back slowly. The clouds outside the window are all black and grey, the moon must be up behind them.

Harry grips his hand.

Tugs him back against the bars with a jolt, softer than the first time.

"Stay," Harry says, and sweat beads his upper lip. "Want you to. Want you. Want. Want."

"I'm no going anywhere," Coop assures him, squeezes back against the tightening grip on his hand.

His arm starts tingling with pins and needles where it's leaning over the bar, and his knees start to ache. Harry slumps forwards and grips his forearm with his other hand, hangs for a minute like Coop's arm is all that's holding him up. The bar is digging into the underside of his arm. "Sarge?"

He gets nothing but a tightened grip and heavy, quick breathing in return.

"Harry?" Coop tries again, and tugs lightly against Harry's grip. Harry tugs back and Coop's knees slide across the concrete floor half an inch. It's like wriggling in the deep sucking mud of a bog, the more he struggles, the more he sinks.

" _Harry_."

There are cameras, Coop thinks. They are being observed. Someone will come. Bastard lab coat wearing sadists, _someone had better come in here soon_. His heartbeat sends an increasing ache radiating from his hand and forearm through his body, bruises borne on his blood.

"Harry, s'time to let go, mate." Coop speaks quietly, carefully, slowly. Pain isn't something he's likely to panic about, it's not so bad yet. It'll bruise, it'll be a fucking rainbow, but he's had a few of those painted across his skin.

Harry's fingers feel as if they're about to punch bluntly through his skin.

 _No_ , Coop thinks. Don't think about that.

 _No_ , Harry says, but it could just be a groan, Harry's head jerks up and his eyes are closer in colour to the virulent gold of yellow cake uranium than the indifferent gold of real wolf eyes. His lips are peeling and darkening, his tongue licks at the bulging, reforming flesh, swollen and dangling spit, strings of foam like a drooling dog.

Harry can't speak. Sometimes that's the first thing to go, more often it's the eyes, the words go soon after.

You don't need speech to scream, Coop thinks.

Harry's claws are coming out, and Coop demonstrates the theory before clamping his teeth shut. Claws, Harry's claws, are growing direct into his arm, spiking right through his skin, he imagines at their full length they might meet in the middle, he'll have scars like — like, "Jesus Christ!", both the accurate and inaccurate versions.

"HARRY," Coop yells, pressing his face against the bars though it's dangerous, stupid to get close enough Harry might bite, might infect him (the saliva, they tell him, it's all in the saliva, he's okay so long as there's no saliva), but he can't help himself. He looks into Harry's eyes, not Harry's eyes, and asks: "Letmego, _Sarge_. _Please_."

He jerks his arm and the world squeals in his ears like a stuck pig, and maybe he's harmonizing, but he can't hear what's coming out of his open mouth, though he knows it's open. Everything tilts and turns black and white and scratchy, like an old movie. He comes back, and there's yelling, but it's not his. Harry's breath is hot on his cheek, Harry's screaming in his ear.

Then panting in the silence, both of them breathing.

Coop does not tug on his arm again, does not attempt to pull it back from Harry's grip.

They are still for a long, long moment. Coop attempts to be stiller than he's ever been. He can feel a heartbeat in his hand, in every single place claws are clenching inside him. He can hear the drip of his blood onto the floor like a backbeat to the heartbeat. Harry looks at him. He's there, still. Just a little. Just enough, and Coop opens his mouth to plead one more time. He screams, instead, and all sound is drowned out by the squeal in his ears again.

Harry stands and by default Coop stands with him, dragged to his feet, to his toes.

Then it's the sound of broken bones. Harry's bones.

Coop reaches up, his boot toes on the ground sliding in blood, a slippery ballet. He looks at his arm in Harry's expanding, lengthening grip, but it's not the sight that makes him heave (there's not much to see through the blood), it's the sound of Harry's bones.

Harry's bones grind and snap, the splinter like damp rainforest foliage under a machete, his fingers crack like a trigger happy kid with a cap gun.

Coop gulps in air and his head cracks against the steel bars.

Things inside Harry tear like the sound of a dog chewing on a bone amplified a thousand times and he howls, and Coop howls with him tugged higher, his feet off the ground for a moment as Harry's spine lengthens.

Behind him, there's noise, boots and shouts.

He meets Harry's eyes, and Harry's all gone now, hidden away inside the monster that's got Cooper by his hand and arm and looks at him like dinner. There's a final wet, deep pop and Coop is screaming again as he's wrenched away, _his arm is gone_ , he thinks, it must be. The wolf falls in a foaming, twitching, bloody heap against the concrete.

His arm, his arm, _Harry_ what did they do to, his _arm_ , he glances down. There are gloved hands around his elbow and what protrudes from the other side of them appears to be something disconnected from him. It's the frayed end of a wet rope, claret dipped and twitching.

Abruptly, all pain stops. He hadn't realised he'd still been in pain until it stopped. "It's okay," he says, "he didn't mean it, Harry didn't."

There's a white coated bastard leaning over him with a porcelain capped smile and an uncapped needle.

"He didn't mean it," Coop says, then, "I've always liked dogs." The world shivers and goes dark.


End file.
